


Make It Bright When It's Grey

by perfectlystill



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dating, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:42:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27609874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlystill/pseuds/perfectlystill
Summary: “What’d you do?” MJ asks.“Nothing! Just wasn’t a love connection.”She grimaces. “Never say love connection again.”“I don’t make promises I can’t keep.” Peter grins, just catching the middle finger she shoots his way before he swings open the refrigerator door.Five times Peter goes on a bad date and comes home to better dates with MJ, and one time he doesn't (go on a bad date).
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 30
Kudos: 141





	Make It Bright When It's Grey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spideysmjs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spideysmjs/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, Marie! I think you expressed interest in this idea once upon a time, and if not, I hope you still enjoy it because I included a little bit of smut with a little bit of feeling, as one does. 
> 
> Title from Frank Ocean's "Golden Girl."

**i.**

Peter trudges up the stairs, two at a time, mind wandering to the lab results that aren’t turning out the way the team hoped. No experiment is a failure; they gain knowledge, try again, cross their fingers for a usable outcome. Still, it feels like failure. 

He turns the corner, swinging his bag around to pull out his keys and open the door. 

MJ sits on the futon, legs crossed pretzel-style, old paperback copy of _Sincerely_ in her hands, cover and pages folded back. She has no qualms about using a book, writing in the margins, dog earring a corner and cracking the spine. MJ cherishes signs a book was loved, read and reread, pored over, analyzed, a connection formed between the reader and the words, between one reader and the next. It’s one reason her favorite bookstore, regardless of its distance, is a secondhand shop in Brooklyn.

Her hair is piled on her head, curlicues escaping her messy bun, warm socks on her feet despite the spring warmth in the air. 

Peter locks the door behind him, attempting to be quiet because there’s a concentration wrinkle between her brows. 

“You’re home early,” she says. 

“Hi.”

“Or maybe you’re just two hours late?”

Peter dips his head, exhaling a laugh. “No. I made it on time.” MJ arches an eyebrow, and he concedes, “Okay, ten minutes late.”

She hums, closing the poetry collection. “Impressive.”

Shucking off his backpack, Peter sets it on the seat of one of their mismatched kitchen chairs. “How was your day?”

MJ tilts her head this way and that: so-so. “I submitted an article that’s critical of an energy company claiming it’s reducing its carbon footprint without making any actual, substantial changes. Jameson reamed me out because one of their board members ‘pays my salary.’” 

“Is that true?”

“No, he just wanted to yell at me.”

Peter frowns, but MJ’s eyes are amused and kind. Her humor’s still intact, which is good. When her article got pulled a few months ago despite (read: because of) her honest, forthright account of the city’s dealings with Kingpin, she paced and ranted, righteous and undeniably _right_. Then, she cried because her hard work and impeccable journalism was thrown out. She cried for herself, and Peter made her a cup of tea, knowing there was nothing else he could do.

“They should pay you more,” Peter decides, shrugging off his jacket and draping it over the back of the chair currently housing his bag. 

“They definitely should. I can’t even afford a crappy apartment by myself.” Her mouth curves up at the corner.

“I’d be screwed if you moved out,” he says. He barely makes enough at the lab to cover his half of the rent as it is, and MJ is the ideal roommate: neat, but not so neat that Peter feels terrible about the mess he leaves around, shares her leftover takeout, fun to watch movies with, and, most importantly, well acquainted with his nighttime alter ego. He can crawl through the window just shy of three in the morning and not worry about being met with a frying pan to the head. 

She’s the best roommate he’s ever had (sorry May, who once turned all Peter’s white clothes pink -- it wasn’t a bad look, but still. And sorry Ned, who abandoned Peter to live with his on-again girlfriend and, fingers crossed, soon-to-be fiancée. Plus, MJ makes excellent onion dip, so it’s hard to compete). 

“Maybe Jameson is doing me a favor.”

MJ snorts, and Peter smiles, running a hand through his hair. 

“How’s,” MJ starts, cocking her head and squinting. “Heather?”

“Hannah was fine.”

MJ narrows her eyes. 

Yeah, so the date wasn’t great. Hannah was clearly put off by Peter’s lateness and dead set on pretending otherwise. Their conversation was stilted, and the food came in miniscule, gross portions. Peter ate all of it, obviously. He doesn’t have money to spare on food he doesn’t eat, and it was easier to pretend the awkward gaps in conversation were due to chewing rather than scrambling for something to say. 

They parted at the door with a loose hug and mutual, unspoken understanding to never see each other again. 

“She was,” Peter insists. That’s true

“What’d you do?” MJ asks. 

“Nothing!” Hunger gnaws at his stomach. “Just wasn’t a love connection.”

She grimaces. “Never say love connection again.”

“I don’t make promises I can’t keep.” Peter grins, just catching the middle finger she shoots his way before he swings open the refrigerator door. There’s the oyster pail with MJ’s leftover mapo tofu, a carton of orange juice with half a glass left, four beers, half a lemon, a bruised apple, and a few slices of Kraft “cheese.” Opening the freezer instead, Peter’s faced with ice cubes, a couple of frozen pizzas, a box of ravioli, and a giant bag of frozen broccoli that May brought over last weekend. “Do you want pizza?” he asks. 

“Sure. Put the broccoli on it, too.”

She’s a genius. 

Really. Like, IQ-tested and everything. 

While Peter preheats the oven and decides whether he should cook the broccoli separate or simply throw it onto one of the pizzas and hope for the best, MJ tells him about the not shitty parts of her day: the doughnuts in the breakroom, the long email from her dad about NASA’s latest discovery and the state of the New York Jets, and the pitch meeting moving back a day. Peter shares his experimental failure and elaborates on his dating failure, and MJ presses her mouth thin in sympathy.

She grabs two beers from the fridge, twisting the caps off and handing one to Peter.

“Thanks.” He takes a pull, relishing the immediate psychosomatic feeling of relief. “Wanna watch the new terrible action-thriller on Netflix?”

MJ raises an eyebrow. 

“Right,” Peter says. “Obviously.”

“Obviously.” Her mouth curls up, familiar and wry.

They settle onto the lumpy futon, pizza on plastic plates, beers on coasters MJ made in pottery class during college. The movie is terrible, as expected, and they take turns pointing out every bit that borrows from better films, doesn’t make sense, or is physically impossible. 

“Spider-Man arguing for realism,” MJ snorts.

Peter laughs at her snort, the bit of sauce on her chin, and her defense of a movie she’s otherwise ripping to shreds. But she’s right. In a world where a radioactive spider bit him and gave him superpowers, where they were blipped out of existence, where Thor actually exists and time travel is real, who is he to say this action sequence on a boat in the middle of the ocean doesn’t track. The boat would’ve tipped over, the hero named something stupid that Peter can’t even remember -- Dirt? Mud? Worms? -- wouldn’t be able to bend that way without breaking his leg. 

MJ picks a piece of cold broccoli off a leftover slice of cold pizza. “You’ve thrown fists with a sentient pile of sand.”

“That’s not fair. That sand is also a person.”

“You punched a pile of sand.” She pops the broccoli into her mouth, shifting her focus back to the laptop set up on the coffee table. 

When Peter looks away from the pleased press of her smirk, the main character -- Dirk? -- is having a punching battle with the villain on the ocean -- river? -- floor. 

Both Peter and MJ have a lot to say about that. 

**ii.**

MJ takes a bite of her bagel, some of the schmear sticking to the corner of her mouth. She licks at it with her tongue, and then wipes at it with her finger, sucking the last dregs off before wiping her finger on a napkin. 

She pays Peter no mind, even when he groans. 

“It was awful.”

MJ hmms, undeterred from her dinner and scrolling through her phone as she leans against the counter. 

“It’s not the worst date I’ve ever been on, but--”

“Danielle from neurobiology, first semester junior year,” MJ says, flat, but she glances up, a spark in her eye. It’s her favorite story, and one he refuses to let her retell because it makes his entire body flush with embarrassment and anxiety even three years later. Even if it’s currently just the two of them, and they both already know it. Peter locked the experience into a vault in the back of his mind, never to be thought of again. Otherwise, he’s pretty sure he’d just drop dead.

“Abbie hates Spider-Man.”

“Good taste,” MJ says. “He woke me up at 3:30 this morning to help stitch up his elbow.”

“Last time he didn’t wake you up, you found him passed out on the bathroom floor and screamed so loudly the neighbors tried to break the door down.”

A small divot forms between her brows. She wipes her mouth with her napkin, and Peter knows it’s to hide the slight frown before she settles her expression. “Your blood was everywhere.”

“Didn’t know you were squeamish about blood.”

She isn’t, not really. Not anymore, at least. 

They both know she thought Peter was dead, but just as his date with Danielle from neurobiology was mortifying, Peter knows the fear and grief that shot through her, only for Peter to groggily blink his eyes open and ask if she had any aspirin, was equally as mortifying. He doesn’t call her out on it. They both know, and she’s one of his best friends, and he pushes past the guilt of worrying her and ruining her sleep because sometimes there isn’t a solution that avoids both negative outcomes. 

“It stained our bath mat,” she says, taking another large bite of bagel. 

“You think it looks better with the bleach spots.”

She shrugs, noncommittal, and swallows. “Does Abbie hate Spider-Man because I had to cover his half of the rent this month?”

“No,” Peter says. He paid her back yesterday when his paycheck came in. “Thank you, by the way.”

MJ makes a face that says she doesn't mind. 

“She hates Spider-Man because we have the police to do his job, and he only makes theirs more difficult.”

“Ugh.” 

“Once she started, she wouldn’t shut up.”

“I knew you wanted women to be silent.”

Peter rolls his eyes, huffing an exasperated exhale, not at MJ, but at the thirty minutes he spent hearing about how the police keep the city safe while Spider-Man destroys it. “Maybe you should go out with her.”

MJ wrinkles her nose and says, “Gross,” shoving the last of her bagel into her mouth.

Peter rests all of his weight against the side of the counter, bringing his head down to smack gently against the peeling laminate countertop. 

“Okay, Loser,” MJ says, reaching out to pat his head. “Let’s get ice cream.”

“Ice cream?” Peter asks, blinking up at her like a child.

“I got my period this morning, and you look like you need sugar before you cave our counter in with your thick skull.”

MJ downs the rest of her water, slips on her ratty old combat boots (the heel coming away from the sole), and slings her purse across her body. Peter locks their apartment door and follows MJ down the narrow hallway and into the bustling Saturday night street. 

“I should’ve told her you needed me to help rearrange your bookshelf,” Peter mutters.

“I tried to give you an out. Going on a date with someone Harry suggested was a bad idea.”

“I know. You told me ten times.”

She shoves him gently as they turn the corner. “Was the food good at least?”

“Yeah, thank god. I had to keep shoving it into my mouth to stop from saying something I’d regret.”

“That’s your problem, Peter. You could’ve gotten her to shut up much faster by telling her exactly what you think of the Police Chief.”

“I _did_ want to finish my food,” he says.

MJ laughs, looking left and right, the light changing to the walk symbol when they’re halfway through the crosswalk. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Changing hearts and minds, MJ.”

“Oh, yeah?” she asks. 

“Well, she called the waiter over for the check.”

MJ rolls her eyes. “Of course.”

“I’m never letting Harry set me up again,” he vows. 

“Good.”

Peter pulls open the door to the ice cream shop, allowing MJ to walk in first. The cold air causes her to rub at her arms, and Peter tugs off the flannel he wears over his white T-shirt, handing it to her.

“Hi, Michelle,” the high school kid behind the register says. He always turns beet red whenever MJ talks to him. “Hi,” he says to Peter, belated. 

“Hey,” Peter says, because he’s not rude. 

“Hey, Joey,” Michelle says, pulling her arm through Peter’s shirt. “How’d your test go?

“Oh, good. Yeah, good.” He clears his throat, flush pooling in his cheeks. “How’re you?”

“Good.” Her mouth presses into a small, amused smirk as she scans the chalk sign behind him. “How’s the honey-rhubarb?”

“Oh, it’s good. Do you want to try it?”

“Can Peter try it, too?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Joey glances at Peter quickly, like he’s afraid to make eye contact. 

A girl sticks her head out of the back. “You good?”

“I got it,” Joey says, shooting Michelle a shaky smile as he grabs a sample spoon. 

He hands the first spoon to MJ, who hands it to Peter. The honey-rhubarb is good, a perfect combination of tart and sweet, creamy and delicious. MJ asks for another sample, and Joey complies, pink blooming down his neck when their fingers brush. 

Peter and MJ sample the birthday cake, the double chocolate, and the butter pecan despite knowing exactly what each flavor tastes like. MJ asks Joey about his summer plans, and he comes very close to telling her his work schedule before catching himself. When Joey asks MJ if she has any plans, she shrugs, says, “Work. Get Peter to build me another bookshelf. I’ll probably take a week off when the heat breaks because the air-conditioning at the office is better than our apartment.”

Joey nods, enraptured, and when MJ orders a small cup of vanilla, he ups her order to a medium free of charge. Peter gets a large cup of cherry topped with hot fudge, as always, and pays. 

They take their ice cream outside, sitting at one of the two small tables. 

“You’re so mean to him,” Peter says.

“I’m very nice to him,” MJ counters, flipping her spoon in her mouth to lick the ice cream off. 

“He thinks he has a chance with you.”

“He’s 17.”

“Exactly,” Peter says. 

“He wants a chance with me,” she clarifies. “That’s very different from thinking he has one, especially when I only ever come in with my boyfriend.”

Peter frowns. “What?”

“He thinks you’re my boyfriend.”

“What!?”

She grins around her spoon. 

“Why does he think that?”

“Because you gave me your shirt and bought me ice cream.” She says it like it’s obvious. In retrospect, yeah, Peter can see that. 

He looks at the way his flannel fits her, too large in the shoulders and arms but not too long, the sleeves barely hitting her palms. It looks good over her screen printed Daisy Bates shirt. She makes them with her mom, and they taught Peter one afternoon, leaving him with a Darth Vader T-shirt he’s spilled everything on, from spaghetti sauce to tomato soup to blood. “Why don’t you tell Joey I’m not your boyfriend?” he asks, collecting some of his ice cream’s melt onto his spoon.

MJ blinks slowly, and speaks even slower: “Because he’s 17.”

“Right.”

Leaning back in her chair, MJ nudges the leg of Peter’s with her foot. “Can you save me some fudge?”

“Duh.”

“Thanks.” Setting her half-eaten cup onto the wobbly table between them (they know from experience that both tables are wobbly), MJ starts buttoning up Peter’s shirt. Between the setting sun and the ice cream, he knows a chill has run through her. “Do you think I should buy a pint of the honey-rhubarb before we go? I just came into some money.”

“Can’t hurt,” Peter responds, scooping the last bit of fudge off his ice cream and plopping it into MJ’s cup. “Are you ever going to give that back to me?” he asks as she leaves the top few buttons undone, smoothing her hands over the flannel. 

“Why? It looks better on me.”

“Everything looks better on you,” Peter says. It sounds like a compliment, maybe, but it’s really a half-baked protest, an argument for why she cannot simply steal anything that looks better on her. He wouldn’t have a closet if she did that. 

MJ hums, picking up her ice cream.

“Fine,” Peter sighs, not quite put out. “You can keep it.”

“Was going to,” she says, poking at his shin with her shoe before she sits up, happiness waltzing around her eyes as she carefully peels the cooled fudge from her vanilla ice cream with her spoon, eating it plain. 

MJ keeps the flannel for about a month before it shows up on Peter’s bed, folded neatly and smelling of her fabric softener.

**iii.**

Peter plops onto the futon, tilting his head back so it hits the wall and closing his eyes. 

The apartment is quiet, and he hopes MJ’s not around so he can properly wallow in peace. He can lie on his stomach, eat the last of the family-sized bag of Cheetos May brought over last weekend, watch a terrible Netflix romcom and maybe cry about 3/4ths of the way through. 

Yeah, that sounds good. 

He’s scrolling through Netflix, hand in the Cheeto bag, when MJ comes out of her room, hair still damp from a shower she must have taken before he returned home. “You’re back early,” she says. 

“Yeah.”

He can feel her eyes on him, but he just keeps looking for a movie that’ll ease his wounded self-esteem. 

The futon dips as she sits next to him, bringing her foot up and tugging it close. She looks at her phone instead of Peter or his laptop.

He bites a Cheeto in half, clicks on a shitty romcom and reads the description. 

“ _You’ll Know_ is out,” MJ says.

“Released last weekend,” Peter agrees, popping the rest of the Cheeto into his mouth. He meant to see it with May on Sunday afternoon before some assholes decided to stickup a bank. 

“We could go. There’s a showing in about 40 minutes.” Peter looks at MJ, her face open and nonjudgmental, chin on her knee, specs of water on her shoulders from her hair. “We’d have to leave in five.”

Peter rubs his orange-dusted hand against his forehead, realizing too late. “We wouldn’t want to miss the previews.”

MJ’s knee bumps Peter’s on the subway as she looks up reviews (middling) and only shares lines from the decent to good ones. The theater isn’t empty, but it’s not bustling the way it can be on the weekend. The artificial lights make Peter feel too exposed, and it smells like a mixture of stale and fresh popcorn, a few straw wrappers strewn on the ground. MJ buys Peter a box of Swedish Fish, a bag of popcorn, and a large soda to share. Peter buys himself a couple of hotdogs, and MJ doesn’t say anything because she’s the best. 

The previews have already started by the time they get to the theater and sit down. Peter likes the dark of the theater compared to the fluorescence of the lobby, and his hotdogs are good even if the second is room temperature by the time he eats it. The movie _is_ mediocre, but MJ laughs once, and it makes Peter laugh, too. He cries at the big love confession, wiping underneath his eyes with his fingers, feeling suspended in a different world from the one the rest of his evening took place in.

He finishes the popcorn on their walk back to the subway, and MJ doesn’t critique the movie, just says she had fun, the leads were both incredibly hot, and she would like the Swedish Fish Peter didn’t eat. He hands over the box, and she struggles fitting it into her bag, which refuses to zip. 

“Thank you,” he says as their apartment building comes into view. 

“You’re welcome,” she answers, but he can tell by the way she looks at him that she has no idea what he’s thanking her for. Her hair is dry now, curly, brushing past her shoulders, and her eyes are dark, soft and kind, and Peter thinks if he looks into them long enough, it’ll have the same effect as being plunged into the darkness of the theater -- suspended from time, somewhere otherworldly, safe and comforting. 

They watch the episode of _Seinfeld_ where Jerry doesn’t want Elaine to move into his apartment building, and during a heartburn medication commercial, Peter admits, “She left.”

MJ shifts, folding her legs so her knee presses against Peter’s thigh. She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and turns her head to let Peter know she’s listening without pressure.

“The appetizers arrived, and she went to the bathroom and never came back.”

MJ frowns. “Oh.”

“That wasn’t even the worst part. It was the waiter checking back and offering to make the appetizers on the house when she realized I’d been ditched.”

“I hope you took her up on it.”

“I didn’t,” Peter says, looking down and wiping his hands on his only pair of nice pants. He never changed out of them, too self-pitying, and now he wishes he had. 

“That sucks,” MJ says. “I mean, Vivi leaving, but paying for the food, too.”

“I guess.” Peter shrugs. “I was gonna offer to pay, anyway.”

“Old-fashioned.”

Peter snorts, and it somehow catches in his throat, sounding almost like a sob. Which is dramatic. He liked Vivi for the ten minutes he talked to her: she had long blonde hair, pretty hazel eyes, pink lips, and a folded up newspaper in her bag (who reads physical newspapers anymore?). She was interesting and funny, but it was only ten minutes.

“Chivalrous,” MJ adds softly, a lilt of a joke underneath the words that causes Peter’s lips to twitch into a sad smile. 

“Stupid,” he says. 

“She definitely is,” MJ answers. Her hand lands on the curve of his shoulder, squeezing once. “You deserve better.”

“Do I?” Peter asks. He’s late to 90% of his dates, and he lies by omission to all of them -- when he’s not lying directly. He doesn’t think he’s a bad person, and he tries his best, but he doesn’t really know if that’s enough for anyone. He doesn’t even know if it should be.

MJ’s frown deepens, her eyes wide and sad, and Peter hates it. “Yes.”

Peter presses his mouth together and nods while MJ slides her hand around his back, squeezing his other shoulder and resting her head against him so her hair tickles his cheek. She smells like water lilies with a hint of salted butter, and he doesn’t hate it. 

“Thank you,” he says. He doesn’t know if he believes her, but he knows MJ believes it. For tonight, that’s good enough. 

**iv.**

Peter pulls off his shirt the minute the door closes behind him. 

“Nice to see you, too,” MJ says, a box of bowtie noodles in one hand, a few bags of groceries on the counter.

“Sorry,” Peter groans.

MJ sniffs, wrinkling her nose. “You stink.”

“Megan threw up.”

“On you?” 

Peter nods grimly. 

“I was kidding,” MJ says, cringing.

“Well I’m not.”

“Did you even eat dinner?” 

“No. It happened at the museum.”

“Well, was the date good before that?”

Peter rubs at the back of his neck, shirt still hanging between his thumb and forefinger. He really needs to soak it. “She didn’t laugh at anything I said.”

“That’s because you’re not funny,” MJ says, grabbing a box of protein bars.

“Ha ha.”

“I’m serious.” She looks over her shoulder from where she’s reaching, setting the protein bars on the top shelf, stone-faced.

“Why can’t you explain puns to a kleptomaniac?” Peter asks. 

MJ closes the cabinet, pulling down her T-shirt where it rode up. “Peter…”

“They always take things literally.”

She stares at him, expression blank.

“Takes things, MJ. Literally. They literally take things.”

“That’s awful,” she says, but her mouth is curling up. 

“You’re gonna laugh.”

“I’m not,” she insists, tension jumping around her jaw.

“You are. I can see it.”

“I’m not,” she tries, tucking her reusable bags inside each other. Her laugh bubbles over, and she adds, “That was really terrible.”

“I know.” Peter likes the way MJ’s face flushes the faintest pink when she’s trying not to laugh at one of his terrible jokes or one-liners even more than he likes getting a laugh out of her for something genuinely clever. 

“If you agree not to tell anyone about that and help me make dinner, I’ll share it with you.”

“Deal.”

MJ puts the tomatoes into the oven to roast and boils the water for pasta while Peter chops a carrot. “I like them shredded,” MJ says, looking over his shoulder.

Peter looks at the small cutting board, the one carrot round that rolled off and onto the counter. “You want to make the salads?”

“I’m making the main course.”

“Looks like you’re just standing around backseat cooking.” MJ smacks his shoulder and Peter says, “Ow,” even though it doesn’t hurt. And then: “It smells good.”

“Thanks.”

He doesn’t shred the carrots, but he does ask whether she wants the cucumbers left in rounds or cut smaller, receiving an affronted, “Who doesn’t dice cucumbers for a salad?” 

Peter also dices the small yellow pepper she bought and sprinkles on the cheese MJ will use to top the pasta. She likes the garlic croutons Peter mostly eats straight out of the box, so he adds those, too. MJ helps make homemade dressing with olive oil, vinegar, lemon and garlic, the bone in her wrist popping as she whisks, checking that it’s all incorporated before Peter pours it over the salad. 

Instead of gathering their plates and eating in front of one of their laptops like they usually do, they sit at the kitchen table.

MJ twirls a noodle around her fork and stabs a roasted tomato with the prongs. “How’s that burn on your back?”

“Gone.”

“Do you think your healing’s getting faster?” she asks before taking a bite. Part of the noodle slips off the fork, and she slurps it into her mouth.

Peter flexes his toes against the floor. “No?”

“Would it be weird if I started keeping track?”

“Yes,” he says. “But you can.”

“Cool.” She nods, shoulders relaxing. 

“This is really good,” Peter says around a mouthful of pasta. 

MJ scrunches her nose, looking caught between disgusted and fond. “We make a good team.”

“We could like, make this a weekly thing,” Peter says. The suggestion comes easy enough, but it also pinches at his ribs, vulnerable. Ridiculous. MJ saw his dick when she helped him pull a bullet out of his pelvis.

“A weekly dinner?” she asks, eyebrows shooting up. 

“Roommate bonding.”

“Peter, I have the energy to cook an actual meal once a month.”

“Me too!”

Her mouth tugs into a smile, and Peter can’t help but mirror it. “And we sit next to each other while eating a couple times a week.”

It’s a No. He knows it’s a No, but still, he asks: “Yes?”

“Can I just boss you around the kitchen while you make me dinner?”

“Sure,” he agrees, eager in a way that would be embarrassing if MJ hadn’t previously seen his dick while he pulled a bullet out of his groin. 

“I’ll consider it,” she says.

(The first week they’re supposed to make homemade mac and cheese together, but Peter gets caught up in a fight with Electro and doesn’t get home until midnight. The second week he’s too tired and they order pizza. The third week he heats up soup from a can and warms up rolls in the oven. It’s not quite what he had in mind, but they forgot to pick up ingredients for actual food. They do eat at the kitchen table, so, not a total loss.)

**v.**

Peter jots down another idea, brainstorming methods to improve his web fluid when MJ enters the apartment. Her hair’s pulled back from her face with a fancy pin, her dress swooshes just above her knees, and her lipstick has worn off. 

“Hey,” she says.

“How was it?” he asks. 

She shrugs. “Not my type.”

Peter chuckles, setting down his pen. “Weren’t you the one eye-fucking him at the bar for an hour?”

MJ huffs. “He was cute.”

“He was,” Peter agrees. Gavin had thick hair, a square jaw, and broad shoulders. 

“But that’s all he was. Drunk me has very discerning taste in physical appearance, but apparently my conversation standards go way down.”

“That bad?” 

“I can’t talk about it.” Slipping off her heels, she pads around the counter to grab a wine glass. “Why are you back so early?”

“Nick is hung up on his ex.”

“Yikes,” MJ mutters, doubling back to grab a wine glass for Peter. They have a set of six, cheap plastic ones from the dollar store. 

“Talked about him the entire time. Theo doesn’t eat pasta, is applying for his masters in social work, and he likes to bite in bed.”

“Biting can be nice,” MJ says, rattling around the silverware drawer until she finds the corkscrew. 

“I don’t disagree.”

“Noted,” MJ says. 

“Why are you noting that?” 

“Science.” 

Peter shakes his head. “Looks like we both struck out.”

“Who says I struck out?” she asks.

“Noted,” Peter says.

MJ rolls her eyes, twisting the corkscrew. “Gavin asked me back to his place, but if I had to listen to one more mind-numbing story about his favorite cartoon or a frat party, there was no way his mouth was going to be able to make up for it in other ways.” She pops the cork out, pouring herself a too-full glass of wine before offering some to Peter. 

“My date was still worse.”

“That’s not the brag you think it is.”

Peter laughs as she sets the bottle down. “I’m sorry we both had shitty evenings.”

“You’ve been having a lot of them,” MJ says.

Trying to recall the last time he had a good date, Peter takes a sip of cheap merlot. It’s all they can afford, not that it matters much, because it all tastes the same to him. “Louisa,” he decides, triumphant.

“A one-night stand doesn’t count.”

“Why not?” 

“You haven’t been going on dates just for sex, Peter. If that’s all you wanted, you could go to any bar tonight and find someone to fuck.”

He raises an eyebrow. 

“Shut up.” MJ takes a large gulp of wine, fingers curling around the bottle's neck. “Like you don’t know you’re hot.”

Peter winks, following MJ to the futon and settling in beside her. “Yeah, well, I’m starting to think I’m completely undateable.”

MJ takes another sip of wine. Her lips look extra red. “You’re not.”

“Eh,” Peter holds his hand flat, tilting it like a seesaw. “Johnny pretty much said I was, verbatim.”

“Oh, well, if Johnny said it.”

Peter can’t help the huff of laughter that escapes his throat.

“You’ve been on plenty of dates. You’re dateable.”

“They never go anywhere,” he counters, taking another drink of wine. “I’ve been on enough of them that the common denominator must be me.”

MJ rolls her eyes, draining her glass and pouring another before shifting toward Peter. Resting her elbow on the back of the futon, she leans her head against her palm, feet tucked to the side of her thighs. “Yeah, you letting Harry set you up.”

“That was one time!” 

MJ laughs, a low chuckle, thick and raspy. “Maybe you’re purposely picking people who are wrong for you.”

“How can I know that before I give them a chance?”

MJ hums, smoothing a hand over the skirt of her dress. “I do it all the time.”

“Drunk you didn’t know Gavin was a shitty conversationalist.”

“I did.”

Peter’s taken aback, wine sloshing around his glass. A piece of hair falls in front of MJ’s face. He wants to reach out and tuck it behind her ear, but he hasn’t had enough to drink to justify the impulse. “Why’d you go out with him, then?”

“Cindy told me my standards are too high.”

“That’s bullshit.” Peter downs his glass so he’s not too far behind MJ.

“It’s not, though,” she says. “I broke up with Mark because it annoyed me when he sang in the shower. I broke up with Keith because I didn’t like his mom.”

“You broke up with Harry because he’s an asshole,” Peter points out, pouring himself another glass and taking a sip.

MJ agrees, half her second glass already gone like she’s trying to get drunk. They discuss Peter’s shitty dates: he met Hannah in line at the bodega. She’d never been, and Peter helped her decide what to order. Innocent enough. He met Vivi through a night out with Harry. While Harry didn’t set them up, she runs in his circles. Maybe a mistake, in retrospect. He’s made enough idle chat with Megan at work that he could’ve guessed they weren’t compatible. Nick had mentioned his ex when they met. So.

“Told you so,” MJ says, splitting the last of the bottle between them.

Peter sinks further into the futon. “I’m not doing it on purpose, though. I swear.”

“Okay.”

MJ’s eyelashes flutter as she takes another sip of wine. She looks very pretty, and her dress has risen up her thighs. Peter’s staring in a way that he belatedly realizes is not very friendly or polite and feels the telltale heat on his face when he turns his head to force himself to look away.

“I don’t mind,” MJ says. 

Peter swallows, finishing his glass before he risks eye contact. “No?”

“No.” A smile flirts at her mouth -- a flirty little smile he’s seen her shoot people across a university lecture hall, a crowded bar, a coffeeshop in the fading afternoon sun. His chest goes tight now that it’s directed at him. 

MJ walks her fingers along the back of the futon until she hits his shoulder, finds the back of his neck. 

“Should, uh, shouldn’t we think about this?”

She retreats so quickly Peter’s sloshing brain thinks he imagined her fingertips on his skin. MJ finishes her wine, runs a hand through her hair, and says, “Sorry.”

“I want to,” he starts, “I’ve wanted to. I just didn’t think--”

“I want to,” she cuts him off.

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not just drunk and horny?”

“I definitely am,” she says, sliding into his space, warm hand finding the nape of his neck again, fingers carding through his hair. “But that’s not-- I just-- for a long time, Peter.” She shakes her head, annoyed with her lack of articulation. 

“Oh,” Peter says. “Me too.”

MJ eyes his mouth, and Peter watches her lick at her wine-stained lips. Then, they’re kissing. It feels like a projector missing a slide. He doesn’t know how they got from point A to point B, but he really likes point B. MJ’s mouth is warm, working against his with sloppy desperation. She makes a high-pitched noise that causes his hands to flex against her waist, the fabric of her dress smooth and soft where it bunches beneath his palms. 

She settles onto his lap, licking into his mouth like she wants to get drunk off him, too, and it goes to Peter’s head more than the wine. They kiss until his lips feel sore and his head feels dizzy, and when his fingers get caught between the buttons of her dress, MJ laughs against his jaw. 

“Do you want to go out with me?” he blurts. 

She sits up, which is bad, because now there’s distance between their bodies that wasn’t there before. She looks into his eyes, though, and her pupils are blown, cheeks flushed, lips bruised from kissing, and it makes Peter feel hot all over. “Like a date?” she asks, amused. 

“Not like a date.”

Her face falls before she settles it, and Peter wiggles his fingers from between the buttons of her dress, smoothing his hand over her hair.

“Not like a date,” he repeats, “an actual date.”

MJ’s eyes narrow.

A quiet, private laugh escapes him before he can stop it, and MJ uses the hand still tangled in his hair to yank him toward her, smothering the sound with her mouth. 

“Dumbass,” she says, the curve of her smile pressed against Peter’s.

“Whatever you say,” he agrees. 

She bites gently at his bottom lip, and he groans, hands sliding down her arms and back to their home on her waist, fighting the urge to grind her against him. Lucky for Peter, MJ does it herself. The feel of MJ on top of him, solid and warm, has his brain spinning and stopping, add the deliberate press of her against his crotch, and it short-circuits, a mangled moan leaving his throat. 

This is MJ. The girl who held his hand through _A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_ , went to ESU’s freshman social with him because Ned promised his youngest brother he’d cut the cake for his birthday and Peter hadn’t made any other friends yet (hence, the social), drew on his forearm with permanent marker to see if it would fade quicker than on someone without advanced healing. His roommate. His best friend. 

Peter could pinch himself, except he doesn’t want to stop touching MJ. Her left hand moves, mapping the gap between their bodies until she’s tugging on his belt. 

“Off,” she says when she can’t get it unfastened quickly enough. 

Peter chuckles, helps her out, because letting go of her waist is bad, but helping her take his belt off is good. 

MJ undoes the button but doesn’t bother with the zipper, shoving her hand down his jeans to rub at his half-hard dick. 

Peter hisses, slipping his hands beneath the silk-like cotton of her dress and feeling the soft, smooth skin of her thighs. “You’re gonna have to stop that,” he manages, pressing a wet kiss to her chin. 

“And why’s that?” she asks, cocking her head back, mouth stretching with her grin. 

“You know,” he says.

The zipper’s halfway down now, and MJ seems to decide Peter’s boxer-briefs are an unwelcome barrier, because she trails her fingernails along the patch of skin just above them before wiggling her hand inside and getting her palm directly on his erection. 

Peter’s hips stutter to meet her hand, his fingers squeeze at her thighs, pulling her forward. He kisses her neck, licking at the pulse point jumping beneath her jaw. 

“Senior year of high school,” he says, nipping at the same spot, “I thought about leaving a hickey here.”

Her grip on him tightens, and then she laughs. 

“What?” Peter asks, pulling back. His breathing’s heavy, and his hands slacken on her thighs. MJ rests her forehead against his shoulder, hand still down his boxer-briefs as she laughs. “Uh, feeling a little self-conscious here.”

“No, it’s not you,” she says, pushing some hair away from her forehead. “I had a crush on you in high school.”

“Huh?”

“Embarrassingly huge. You could’ve seen it from space when you were there.”

Peter grins. He’s been rubbing off on her-- Well. “You were dating Brad.”

She rolls her eyes, and Peter likes her so much. “Brad was popular and cute.” A beat. “And he asked me out.”

“So,” Peter starts, running his hands up her thighs until he reaches her hips. “You’re saying you would’ve let me give you a hickey anyone could see if I had just asked you out?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I wasn’t going to walk around Midtown with a hickey on my neck,” she says. “And my parents are great, but come on.”

“You could’ve covered it with makeup,” he offers, then off her stare, "Right.” Her skin is warm underneath his hands. “How about now?”

She wrinkles her nose. “We’re not 17, Peter.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“Maybe later,” MJ whispers, hand flat against his abs as she leans down to return her mouth to his, slow and soft at first, building back up. His palms splay across her ribcage, and she tugs at his T-shirt until he helps her pull it off. “Bedroom?” she asks.

“Yours or mine?”

“Yours.” MJ locks her legs around him as he lifts her. “Wait.”

Peter stumbles to a stop in the dark hallway.

“Are your sheets clean?” she asks. 

“Yes.” She squints at him. “Yours?”

“Yeah.”

He only stumbles once when MJ nibbles at his earlobe, fumbling with the doorknob before it creaks open. She reaches out to flip the light switch, causing her to press more firmly against Peter, his erection pulsing with want. He gently deposits her on her full-sized bed; Peter’s is a twin, and he’s about to tell her that’s another reason her room is a good choice, add it to the fact that it’s clean, in general, no clothes scattered across the floor. He _did_ change his sheets after patrol on Tuesday night. Or was it Monday?

Nevermind, because MJ’s lifting her dress up and tossing it onto the floor. Peter takes the opportunity to shove his jeans off, one sock going with them. He hops once as he pulls the other off, and MJ giggles. Peter catches her eyes, dark and sparkling like New York City at night, cheeks flushed, mouth raw and pink. She looks different like this, but she’s MJ, bra strap slipping off her shoulder, matching underwear intended for someone else. 

He actually does pinch himself this time, and MJ laughs through her nose, reaching for Peter’s hand. 

They make out some more, MJ’s tongue thick and heavy in his mouth, her hips slowly rubbing against his, lazy at first, and then more insistent, little breathy whines escaping her throat that make Peter shift her leg so he can grind into her with as much purpose as her hands on his ass. 

MJ pants his name, and he asks, “Condom?”

“Middle drawer.”

While he’s retrieving, MJ sits up, removes her bra and slips out of her underwear. Her hair’s a mess, her skin glistening, and Peter is sure she’s the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. He doesn’t say that because she’d laugh or make a joke about it, probably, and that’s good for another time, but right now the truth of it is enough. 

“You want me to do it?” she asks, eyes slipping to the condom.

“Sure.”

He hands her the rubber, and she sits up on her knees, pulling his boxer-briefs down. She gets her hand on him again, gathering the precum at the tip and using it as she wraps her hand around him in a loose fist. Peter’s knees slip against the sheets, and he groans. 

MJ smirks. “That easy, huh?”

“Yeah.”

She rolls the condom on, one more slide of her hand and twist of her wrist before she’s kissing him again, hands moving to his shoulders in truce as she brings him down onto the bed with her. Peter grinds against her cunt, watches her wetness smear against him, watches her eyelashes flutter, her mouth part as she exhales. 

He slips into her slowly, her hands flexing against his back, her knees brushing against the outside of his thighs. 

“Shit,” he says. “Michelle.”

“You feel good.”

He pulls out a little, rocks back in, feeling her stretch around him, hot and tight. 

“Shit,” he says again. “You, too.”

“Stop saying ‘shit.’”

Peter chuckles, and it’s enough of a distraction that he bottoms out, her knees tightening against his legs. An unknowable amount of time passes and MJ rolls her hips. Peter groans, dropping his head and dotting moist, open-mouthed kisses across chest. They move together, not quite in sync, but working nonetheless, Peter’s body burning partly from exertion and partly from the smell of MJ everywhere (fourth reason her room was the right choice). When he nips at the underside of her breast, she squeezes around him, and he almost loses it. 

MJ sneaks her hand between them to rub at her clit, and Peter almost knocks it away to do it himself, but he’s too far gone and the gentle nudge of her knuckles against his dick when he pumps into her just right, blinking down at the place where their bodies connect, sends a new wave of pleasure through him that’s more mental than physical. 

“God MJ,” he babbles, unsure if the syllables are forming coherently. “You’re incredible. So good.”

“‘m Close,” she gasps. 

Peter slips his arm underneath her thigh, adjusting her leg. “Better?”

MJ moans, low and unintelligible, hand stuttering between her legs before rubbing quicker. She starts fluttering around him, breath leaving her chest in quick, heavy pants, eyes drooping closed.

He pounds into her, mouth open against her shoulder, teeth barely scraping against her skin. Peter feels his own orgasm building, tense and tight, holding it at bay until he feels MJ coming around him. Her mouth drops open, moaning so long and quiet he wonders if not for his superhearing he would think she came silently. 

He pumps into her a few more times before he comes with a groan that shoots through his body and mists across her clavicle. Peter rolls off her, heart beating wildly in his chest, bliss radiating through his veins. 

“Thanks,” MJ says, nonchalant, like she discovered he washed her cereal bowl or vacuumed the apartment without being asked. 

“Any time.” 

**vi.**

A bustle of tourists congregate in the center of the room, only a few scattering to look at the perimeter as a poor security guard reminds them that flash photography is prohibited. MJ glanced at the crowd once before sticking to the pieces lining the room. Peter, a novice, wants to get a good in-person look at a painting he’s seen pictures of countless times: the swirling blues, golds, whites, the tree looming in the forefront while the village sits further back. A happy thrill bounces around his body, but he doesn’t know if it’s the power of _The Starry Night_ or simply seeing a famous piece of art up-close. 

He finds MJ looking at one of those abstract, threw-paint-at-a-canvas pieces Peter’s not convinced he couldn’t replicate himself. “Verdict?” she asks.

“I liked it.”

“He painted it in an asylum. The one he checked himself into after cutting off his ear.”

Peter nods, fiddling with the map in his hands. MJ knows James Ensor’s family had a shop that sold masks likely similar to the ones in the painting confronting death. She knows Rene Magritte did another painting of _The Lovers_ with opaque veils over their heads, posing for a picture as if on vacation. Peter suggested they go as _The Lovers_ to Cindy’s annual Halloween party, and MJ’s eyes lit up before she made him shake on it.

“I didn’t get that,” he says. 

MJ smiles. “Van Gogh didn’t think it was any good. Didn’t even send it to his brother.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say it’s bad. I like it better than this.” Peter gestures to the canvas in front of them. 

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“Why not?”

MJ shrugs. “I’ve known you for over ten years.”

It warms something that’s been simmering between Peter’s ribs for a long time, pleasantly boiling over as though he forgot to turn the temperature down. With a familiar curve of her mouth, she grabs his hand and tugs him along, explaining that Franz Kline’s paintings look energetic and haphazard, like swiping a black brush on a canvas with little care, yet he often drew them first, precise and planned. 

“Do you like these better?” Peter asks, gesturing to the abstract works in the room.

“Not necessarily. I just think I envy them.”

“Why?” Peter recalls the sketchbook she still pulls out on the subway, drawing people with fidelity and style, the lines she creates sharp and quick, softening with a smudge of her thumb. 

“I don’t have the mind for it. It’d just feel like dripping paint onto the floor.”

“Isn’t it?”

MJ bumps her elbow into his, their hands still clasped together. “No.”

“Well,” Peter whispers conspiratorially. “I don’t get it.”

“Yeah, and you also waited ten minutes to look at _The Starry Night_.”

“So have you.”

“Longer,” she admits, pulling him into the next room. 

They spend just over three hours at the MoMa. MJ has an additional piece of information for almost every painting or artwork they look at -- she does go every year for her Dad’s birthday, and she did minor in art history, but it floors Peter, anyway. Her breadth of knowledge, the casual way she imparts it, the delight in her eye when the fact is just a little (or a lot) morbid. 

The train back is crowded, and Peter uses it as an excuse to wrap his arm around MJ’s waist. She leans into him, leans over to whisper about the man speaking very loudly on his cellphone. It reminds Peter of all the other places he and MJ have gone together, all the subway trips downtown and the bus rides to Ned’s, everything shifting just a little, except it feels more like slotting into place. 

They grab sandwiches from a bodega close to their apartment, and MJ orders Peter’s just the way he likes, smooshed flat, without teasing him about it. They stop for ice cream, and Joey still cannot make eye contact with Peter as he flirts with MJ. 

The sun’s just starting to set when they arrive back at their apartment, and MJ slams the door shut with Peter’s body. She tastes like pickles and vanilla, and her cheeks are warm from the summer day, and her sunglasses are perched on top of her head. 

“So,” she says, a chaste peck against his mouth before she leans back. “How was your date?”

Peter dips his chin, one palm against the side of her neck, thumb tracing her jaw. “Pretty good, actually. I think it was a real love connection.”

MJ grins, and it crinkles around her eyes, filling every space in Peter’s body with blinding bright joy, a feeling akin to first-date infatuation. It’s not, because Peter knows MJ, has been annoyed that she leaves a splash of creamer in the fridge that makes him think he has enough for his coffee when he doesn’t, has commandeered the entire medicine cabinet, and hates _Scott Pilgrim_. 

But he also knows she cries snotty tears at every Disney movie, prefers white cheddar popcorn, and crouches down to hook her chin over his shoulder when he’s having a particularly awful day and needs a hug. 

Peter tilts up to kiss her again, but MJ drops her hands and takes a step back. “I don’t put out on the first date.”

Frowning, Peter says, “Yeah, you do.”

“When?”

“Vincent? Ginnifer? José?”

“How many times do I have to tell you a one-night stand is not a date?” MJ’s curls tangle in her sunglasses as she pulls them off her head, and she pouts in frustration, brow wrinkling. 

Peter laughs, just as fond of her as he’s always been. “Are you saying we had a one-night stand?”

“Obviously.” The joke undulates beneath the words as she tucks her sunglasses into her bag before setting it onto the table and toeing off her shoes. 

Peter considers her scuffed white tennis shoes, laces knotted, her grey ankle socks, long legs and muted floral sundress. They’ve made out a few times since they fucked last weekend, but there’s so much Peter still doesn’t know about MJ’s body. 

Tonguing at a cooled piece of hot fudge stuck in one of his teeth, he says, “This isn’t our first date.”

“I’m pretty sure I’d remember,” she counters, leaving her shoes perpendicular next to the table instead of placing them on the rack by the door. “Are you sure you didn’t get a concussion when you swung into that skyscraper?”

“I was thrown into it,” he clarifies before splaying his palm across his heart, all drama. “And I’m hurt you don’t remember.” 

“Remind me.”

“We had pizza and watched that Netflix movie where Slug killed a man twice his size by kicking him in the shin,” Peter starts. “Got ice cream and I kicked your ass at war--”

In the time it takes Peter’s mouth to form the next syllable, he has an arm full of MJ, her pleased laugh pressing against his mouth more than kissing him. “I definitely fuck on the sixth date.”

Peter’s heart tumbles delighted around his chest, hands finding their way to the underside of MJ’s thighs almost of their own accord. “Happy to hear it.”


End file.
